Ivan Šeremet

THE STRATEGY OF SHIFT
February-March 2002.

View Strategy of Shift Gallery

Many contemporary constructivist geometry oriented artists endeavour to transform the elementary unity of surface and neutrality of geometry into a structure that enables a certain spontaneity and opens up to intimate experience while the original rigidity of the chosen position is not denied.

The solution offered by Ivan Šeremet features an experimental approach, concise formulation and multi-layered aspects of latent meaning. For example, in Evening Sign (1988) he dynamizes inner life in the defined field of a painting by structural arrangements of triangles, rectangles and squares, as well as by spontaneous gesture and the sensual character of colour. Still, Šeremet aims further: he strives to make contrast dynamics the moving force of his research, and energy the trademark of his artistic expression.

In Top Off (1989), he formulates this principle using conceptual and visual clarity of Copernican revolution: by cutting and moving a solid field and its sign, he suggested a tectonic movement of the surface toward new possibilities and their mental-emotional effects. The shift itself, to paraphrase A.Maracic, became the real theme of his work. In the abstract diagram of geometry he successfully formulates his thought and defines the mechanics of its plastic functioning with clarity and compactness that immediately reveal the state of affairs.

Subsequently, Šeremet employs his principle in various spatial and object arrangements: section of a monolithic form with counterpointed border profiles, the black and white interrelation of the superficial area and the centre. And a slight shift of parts (Gap Down the Middle, 1990), or the object/box in which shifting of one of its sides reveals a 'mysterious vacancy' of its interior, resulting in the suggestive tension of present absence (Open, 1990).

In his variations on the principle, the artist oscillates between analytic-structural propositions (A Shift Before, Behind, 1990-97) and the mirror image as an extended dimension of the body's interior (Look at Yourself, 1996). 'Šeremet creates his paintings and sculptures by a hand that cannot be replaced by a machine. The part played by the hand in the creation of his works is particularly obvious in the way he applies paint on a surface. Under the monochrome fields we clearly feel unambiguous vibrations of distinct and numerous brush strokes.' (Z.Makovic).

Constructivist/deconstructivist impulse expresses itself in the cycle of paintings/objects (as they are called by the critique for a good reason) where Šeremet creates spatial suggestions on the level of surface by discretely pushing apart or laying above one another structural units that create caesuras of challenging resonance. Formal organization of horizontal or vertical arrangements and surface-folds that arise from level shifts of compositional elements, the dynamic rhythm of black and white, and tectonic qualities of the composition characterize space as a 'crack in the universe' with a surprising balance between material and relation.

Such conceptual-plastic relations in Šeremet's work have 'activist' force, which is obvious in paintings/objects. Through Spacing Towards and Inside Out in the Centre (1991). They present an attempt to transgress, to use Robert Morris's formulation, the aura of power and domination over the viewer that lies at the heart of abstract expressionism and minimalism. In that sense, in Towards the Centre (1989-1997) Šeremet installs a smaller unit within a larger one, but keeps it separate. He extracts his effect from the contrast of constructive overlapping in places of cuts. In the painting/object Shift in a Triangle (1992), the cut and the movement of triangle basis makes the 'fracture of changes' the reason and the purpose of the plastic organism, the content that tells its own story. The reality of the work's constitutive elements becomes a language for direct communication with the viewer.

Sis serigraphics by Ivan Šeremet published in the album of the second edition of Dvogled with six poems by Goran Rem and foreword by Marijan Špoljar and Branko Maleš, publisher Gallery S, Koprovnica 2000 (co-publisher Horetzky-Atelier Brane Horvata), present a crystallization of Šeremet's operative principle of 'geometry of movements', where information arises from obviousness of interrelations. Šeremet subverts the monolithic plane to establish inspiring configurations of geometric arrangements that are ruled by the tension of composing and decomposing, stability and dynamics, part and the whole, large and small. Using a simple plastic vocabulary and its energy, the painter has succeeded in 'provoking' the neutral qualities of geometry and turning it into a moving force of desire and practice, the place of suggestive legibility and reception endowed by cultural and emotional charge.

Mladenka Šolman